The British Academy Book Prize celebrates ground-breaking works of non-fiction that have made an outstanding contribution to the public understanding of world cultures and the ways in which they interconnect.

This year’s shortlist has just been announced, and is as fascinatingly eclectic as always, with works on the invention of books in the ancient world; the early use of photography to document colonial conflict; the role of ritual in human civilisation; China’s Cultural Revolution; a retelling of the story of global emancipation; and the origins of empire in India.

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